


Look, Sister (English Translation)

by disgustingdelirium



Category: Sharp Objects (TV)
Genre: Drabble, Drama, Drugs, F/F, Incest, Mental Disorders, Psychological Trauma, Sibling Incest, Spoilers, Translation, Triggers, Unhealthy Relationships, lamonika
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21687325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disgustingdelirium/pseuds/disgustingdelirium
Summary: After roughly translating lamonika's gorgeous fic i felt i had to polish it up and post it because i love it so much...however I am not a native or fluent Russian speaker so there were some liberties taken to keep the flow of the work intact!
Relationships: Amma Crellin/Camille Preaker
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	Look, Sister (English Translation)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lamonika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamonika/gifts).
  * A translation of [посмотри, сестра](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18826210) by [lamonika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamonika/pseuds/lamonika). 



Amma never had a sister. Amma just doesn't know that sisters don't kiss on the lips, but Camille looks so sad and exhausted, and Ecstasy is what she needs. Who cares how they pass the pill?

If John Keen could kiss his sister, why not Amma?

(He didn't kiss her - you can hardly lie before death)

The dead girls, looking at her with Camille's eyes, disappointedly bow their heads in different directions. Amma smiles broadly at them in return.

The road underfoot is straight. The road is always straight if you're drunk and the rollerskates are stable enough; Amma is a deity in denim overalls, in a dress from a time of daughters pretending to be porcelain dolls, in a white shirt on top of immaculate skin that cannot be read. Amma throws her arms out like a bird - _look, sister, I am an angel of the Lord, punishing the unwanted_ \- and grabs Camille by the forearm, and she laughs for the first time in a long time. Laughter gives way to pain somewhere under the ribs: either from the elbow of a sister who accidentally fell into your solar plexus when falling on the grass, or from the realisation that this will all end soon.

Amma grabs Camille by the hands, whimpers whimsically, like a little child, and reaches after her into the room. They stagger, breathing ragged, covering their mouths with their hands so as not to laugh and wake Mama, and roll over the railing, miraculously without splintering the wood of it.

The dead baby, Marian, is looking at them from the door of her empty room - Amma sees Camille freeze for a second, looking for something in the uncomfortable darkness of the house. Ghosts live in this city, in their heads - and don't want to leave.

Amma pulls Camille into the bedroom and flops onto the bed, leaving her skates somewhere in the corner; Camille presses her forehead against the bedspread and mutters something, and Amma knows that she is unhappy, that she is angry, and that the skin on her lower back, on her spine, on her sides, is covered with words - that she is a book of secrets Amma wants to touch, to read.

Amma is in no habit of denying herself.

Camille does not flinch when Amma touches the scars - too drunk. In the dark, they appear to be stains of light, letters doused with neon paint, and Amma reads each of them until the syllables add up to words revealing memories in all their pristine ugliness, not covered by anything in an attempt to forget.

_(Mama said that you're dangerous. I'm dangerous too, it's just that Mama doesn't know about it)_

Amma kisses Camille on the top of her head, on the temple, on the cheek, on the corner of her mouth, touches the back of her hand with her lips, a wrist not hidden by her sleeve, and smiles, snuggling her tongue against the sweeping FIX that crosses her arm.

“Tell me,” Amma whispers, and closes her eyes when she is turned over onto her back.

Mama looks in at them from behind the door they'd left ajar, as Amma smiles sharp and wicked.

_(smiles like the dead girls from the photos)_

***

Amma tells Camille that she is Persephone, and the wreath on her head, together with the weight of the world of the dead, pulls her down toward the cold ivory. Amma's whole room is pink, and weakness together with the poison-pink of a clot starts to settle in their throats. Camille covers her eyes - Amma sees how hard she has taken every second in this house, turned through Mama's efforts into a torture chamber, into a cell of snobbery and plastic well-being. Alan shakes his head: "No, Amma, no, Camille, no, Marian, leave everything as it is."

Nothing can be fixed.

Camille slides along the wall, leaving the dining room, and Amma feels her breathing ease. Dropped eyelashes, stuck in her heart like needles, suddenly disappear, showered one-by-one onto the bright floor.

Camille tries to call out - to who? what for?

A cherry lollipop stuck in a pocket melts and turns into a pink stain on clothes. Sweat covers their foreheads, shirts stick to their backs.

_(don't call out, don't)_

Amma presses cold lips to her sister's cheek and hides in her room - if Mama kills them both, then maybe it won't be so bad to die.

But they, of course, are not allowed to die.

***

Camille holds a tooth in her hand - Amma freezes for a second in the doorway, admiring her red curls, long fingers, and how she helplessly clenches and unclenches her palm. There are so many teeth making up the floor of Amma’s dollhouse, the skeleton of her life. And at the centre of it lies the last parts of those dead girls, a reminder of what should be remembered and what should not be.

Amma hugs Camille from behind, feels her tears dripping onto her hand, and smiles, bewildered.

_(Look, sister, I am an angel of the Lord punishing the unwanted, I am the woman in white jealously guarding the most precious things, I am Persephone, the goddess of fertility and the kingdom of the dead, look, sister)_

“Don't tell Mama,” whispers Amma.

"I'll tell her myself."

**Author's Note:**

> After roughly translating lamonika's gorgeous fic i felt i had to polish it up and post it because i love it so much...  
> however I am not a native or fluent Russian speaker so there were some liberties taken to keep the flow of the work intact!


End file.
